


Looking for a Ride North

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [16]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8138846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Mutant. She’s heard the word on the television often enough to know that it doesn’t have anything to do with biology class anymore. It’s real now. And it’s what she is. Mutant. Freak. Monster….





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: mutation. Part of my Women on the Border series.
> 
> Takes place near the beginning of _X-Men_ (that first one :).

Marie is shaking. A little. It’s not that she’s afraid, though. Not really. 

She knows she can handle herself—she’s smart enough not to get picked up by some psycho. And she supposes, if she does, all she has to do is take her gloves off.

So it’s not that she’s afraid of  _ them _ , then. 

Mutant. She’s heard the word on the television often enough to know that it doesn’t have anything to do with biology class anymore. It’s real now. And it’s what she is.

Mutant. Freak. Monster….

David’s still there in her head. She can’t explain it, but he is, like an echo of himself. He was almost an echo for real. Three weeks in a coma, and when he woke up, she was too afraid to see him. The doctors didn’t know what happened, but nobody blamed her for it. Because they’re stupid. She did that just by touching. 

And then she did it again, later; after the ambulance came and took him away and she was left with her mama and she was calmed down. She let her mama put a hand on hers, curled her fingers around Mama’s just a little bit—and yanked back before she’d done more than absorb the woman’s shock and fear.

She knew better. She  _ knew _ better.

For a while now, there’s been this little feeling, right in the back of her mind:  _ Don’t touch. _ She didn’t even think about the fact that she’d barely touched her parents in weeks—not until she was halfway through Tennessee. It’s like her body knew she was turning into something.

The politicians call mutants weapons, and she supposes maybe they’re right. But if she  _ is _ a loaded gun, she’s not going to stay around the people she loves long enough to fire off again. 

So now she’s in the tiny fast food restaurant in a gas station in Onoway, Alberta, trying to find a ride north and watching the people watch her. They’re not afraid of her, but they probably should be. God, she just wants to be normal again! This was the trip she and David were going to take together. Maybe. 

Never been kissed, and now she’d nearly killed the first boy to do it. And he’s still here, in her.

“Hear you’re looking for a ride north?”

The man who speaks is big, heavy, bearded. Rough. The kind of guy she would have avoided before she became what she is. 

“Yeah,” she replies, fearless because she’s got nothing to lose anymore. Or ever again, probably. “I don’t have much money, but…”

He grins, and his eyes are surprisingly kind. “Didn’t figure you did if you were trying to get a ride in a place like this.” He looks at the pack next to her. “Where you headed?”

“Alaska,” she says, a protective hand going to her pack. It’s all she has. “Anchorage.”

He blows out a breath. “Long way from here.”

“Longer from where I started,” she murmurs.

“Look, I can take you as far as Laughlin City,” he offers. She nods and starts to dig for her money. Maybe there she can get a ride. She hasn’t seen a city in a while, just the little towns in the middle of nowhere. Away from too many people. “No, I don’t need any money,” he tells her, and she stiffens. “I don’t any of that, either,” he corrects her, and she’s ashamed of herself for thinking it. “I’m heading there anyway. I figure I could use the company.”

 

She tries to be good company, since it’s the only payment he’ll take. His name is Ronald and his bulldog Sam is home with his wife.

“Where are you from?” he asks, ten miles out from where they started.

“Mississippi.”

“Haven’t ever made it that far south,” he replies. “I’ve been to the States a few times, on long hauls, but it’s always the Pacific Northwest.” He grins and she wonders how old he is. “Got as far as Minnesota once.”

“Where are  _ you _ from?”

“Little place called Sandy Beach. Outside of Edmonton.”

The name strikes her funny with the ocean so far off. “Is it?” she asks boldly. “Sandy, I mean.”

“Yeah. It’s nice.” He smiles softly, missing home, probably.

Her, too. 

“What are you going to do when you get to Anchorage?” he asks. He’s curious without being creepy.

“Don’t know,” she says truthfully. Then, because she should have  _ some _ reason: “Just always wanted to go.”

He watches the road, but she can see he’s thinking. But Ronald doesn’t say anything else, and Marie’s mind wanders back to what happened. She can’t stop thinking about it and about how she shouldn’t be able to know what happened from both sides. She knows inside her head that David was turned on at first, which was scary but also kind of cool. He could feel it happening though—her sucking him away—and then he was just scared, and then hurt and... She wonders if that’s really what she did, if she sucked part of him out, and now he’s back home with a chunk of him missing forever. Because that’s what it feels like. She has that part of him  _ inside her _ , that part that kissed her.

That wouldn’t be so bad, she guesses. If she has that part in her, he doesn’t have to remember what it was like to be that scared.

God…

“Take a little friendly advice?” Ronald says quietly after another few miles. “When you get to Alaska, call home. Get ‘em to wire you money for a flight back.”

Marie thinks of the looks she got after what happened, the way her mama kept her distance and her daddy wouldn’t look at her but sidelong. David wouldn’t see her—not that she wanted him to. She didn’t have a choice, going rogue. She wasn’t wanted anymore. And they weren’t safe with her there.

“There’s nothing to go home to,” she says, trying to end the conversation right there. “I’m real tired. Think I’ll get some sleep.”

“You do that,” he says, like he knows she won’t listen to him. “But you think about what I said, okay?” 

She nods, but he’s right. She won’t listen. She can’t. She’s not Marie D’Ancanto anymore. Marie is dead, gone, changed. Mutated into something dangerous and wrong. She’s rogue now.

_ No, _ she thinks clearly as sleep claims her. 

_ I’m Rogue. _

*********   
the end


End file.
